


It’s a Lovely Evening in Your Former Home, and You Are a Horrible Rat

by nimagine



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Heist, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimagine/pseuds/nimagine
Summary: Splinter may have recently gone from being a tortilla chip on stilts to a bowling ball on much shorter stilts, but he can’t be blamed for that. He can probably be blamed for putting all his children in a hard plastic cat backpack, though.______________________my piece for mad dogz zine vol 1
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	It’s a Lovely Evening in Your Former Home, and You Are a Horrible Rat

**Author's Note:**

> im a bit late posting this, huh? 
> 
> also i just want everyone to know i had SO many problems keeping this under word count and i think its obvious aklhlsnlkgdl i was going to make a version that added in all the stuff i wanted to be there but at this point im not sure ill do that. who knows, maybe someday y'all will come back and this will look totally different. 
> 
> anyway here's wonder wall

“Oh, my poor rat spleen,” Splinter wheezes. He sucks in his stomach, but he still can’t get himself unstuck from the window of the second-story bathroom. 

Sure, he may have recently gone from being a tortilla chip on stilts to a bowling ball on much shorter stilts, but he can’t be blamed for that. He can probably be blamed for putting all his children in a hard plastic cat backpack, though, which is contributing to his current predicament. 

Splinter exhales until he’s dizzy and slithers down onto the floor like a disappointing tsuchinoko, groaning. The bathroom, like the rest of the house, is full of official Lou Jitsu merch, from shower curtains to branded toothpaste.

“Okay, that was mortifying,” he groans to the tiny turtles peering out of the cat backpack’s porthole window. “The hardest part is over. Papa will be done with his heist soon, and then you can go back to destroying the truck’s upholstery.”

He opens the door. “Who knows, maybe we could live here if—”

There’s a manta ray yokai waiting on the other side with a raised baseball bat. “Freeze, Lou Jit—” He blinks and drops the bat. “Oh, you’re just some rat guy that sounds exactly like Lou Jitsu. Weird.” 

“What?” Splinter sputters. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Capturing anyone who breaks in and bringing them to Big Mama.” He roughly yanks the straps of Splinter’s backpack. 

The kids cry out at the sudden jerk, and the manta’s eyes widen, flipping Splinter around to peer inside the backpack. “Oh, are these the creature things that Baron Draxum was offering a reward for? Guys!  _ Guys _ —” 

Splinter clumsily strikes, thwacking him senseless, and drags him into the bathroom. 

“This is my  _ secret _ house! Not even the IRS knows about it!” Splinter hisses. “How did Big Mama know to look for me here? ...Oh, right. I brought her here once.” Splinter facepalms. “We have to hide now, okay kids? Quiet!”

Splinter peeks out of the bathroom. He can hear quick footsteps coming up the stairs. He sprints down the hall and scrambles up a bookcase of Lou Jitsu movies. 

A willowy bat yokai appears at the top of the stairs and trots into the open bathroom. “Oh, great,” she announces, voice muffled behind the black fabric draped over her wide-brimmed hat.

A purple googlyschmootz emerges from the bedroom and squelches past Splinter’s hiding place into the bathroom. “Right, what’s all this then?”

As the two yokai fall into panicked bickering over the manta’s unconscious body, the kids begin to horseplay in the backpack, their shells clacking against the plastic. There’s a smack, and then faint crying. Splinter winces, holding his breath.

The yokai peek out of the bathroom and down the dark hallway. 

“Baby ghost?” the bat asks.

Splinter grabs a dusty Lou Jitsu figure from the top of the bookcase and throws it over the balcony to the bottom floor, mouthing  _ distraction-jitsu _ to himself. 

The yokai flinch at the crash below. 

“Lou Jitsu ghost?” the bat asks.

“You check downstairs,” the googlyschmootz says. “I’ll check this floor.”

“Sure, I want nothing to do with the crying baby ghost,” the bat replies, booking it.

Splinter jumps down and slips into the bedroom, eager for a chance to ambush the googlyschmootz. Everything inside — the ornate bed, plush carpet, and poster-covered walls — are all coated in purple slime. 

“Augh! This is disgusting!” Splinter whines, slipping and sliding across the slick carpet to a glass case full of Lou Jitsu memorabilia. “This is even worse than that time we filmed in a mayonnaise factory! Kids, don’t ever go into one of those, the working conditions are—”

The door bursts open and the googlyschomootz is there. “Blimey, I thought I heard Lou Jitsu, but you’re only an ugly rat bloke.” He squelches forward, stretching out to his full height. “Anyhoo, I’m taking you to—” 

Splinter topples the display case on the yokai, splattering him apart. 

“That’s what you get for ruining my custom-order memory foam! Don’t worry, kids, I’ve fought slime yokai before, he’ll be okay in a bit,” Splinter explains, picking his way through the debris and purple, quivering puddles. “You’re never allowed to see the Battle Nexus! Too violent for children.”

“Hello?” the bat calls out fearfully from downstairs.

The hallway looks safe, so Splinter scurries down the hall into a room marked ‘Boring Room’. Inside is a dusty, undecorated desk and not much else. 

Splinter stumbles through the dark to the back and forces open the lock on the closet with a loud  _ crack _ . 

Inside the closet is what brought Splinter here. When he flips on the light, he can see a large wooden chest that holds the creepy family teapot, traditional weapons, photo albums, and things he’d rather leave behind But if this really is the last time he’ll be back… well, some of this stuff will be useful. The entire room is muted in comparison to the rest of the house: greys and browns and blacks composing the old clothes, the meditation mat on the floor. This was never Lou Jitsu’s closet. It was Hamato Yoshi’s. “This is a bunch of dusty old stuff, kiddos, but Papa has to take care of it.”

He can hear the bedroom door burst open down the hall. “Oh no, the baby ghost got you.”

Splinter closes the closet behind him and paces. “If I can’t have this house, neither can Big Mama!” Splinter’s eyes cast around the room until they land on the yellowing rotary phone on his desk. 

He picks it up and dials 911. 

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Thieves broke into my house!” Splinter declares. “I need the police! The national guard! The navy!”

“Uh…Can I have your name, sir?”

“My name? It’s uhhh...” Splinter looks out the window to his stolen truck parked on the street. “Forty-year-old Toyota Stout?”

“No, it isn’t.”

Splinter hangs up. “Okay, so that won’t work. I need someone else to keep Big Mama out! But who…?” Splinter flips through the address book next to the phone. “I need someone that will do whatever I say without thinking… perfect!” His finger stops on an entry for  _ Marcus Moncrief _ , and he starts inputting the number. “Kids, remember that it’s not good to manipulate fans, okay?”

“This is Jupiter Jim’s transmitter!”

“Hi, Marcus,” Splinter says in his coolest voice. “It’s me, Lou Jitsu!”

“What—no way! I thought the aliens got you!” 

“Uh… what? No. Anyway, I need a favor, devoted fan—”

The door to the office bursts open. The bat yelps in surprise, wincing at the light before she levels a thin finger at Splinter. “I will destroy you, hideous-Lou-Jitsu-rat-ghost!”

“I’m not dead  _ or _ ugly! Marcus, I’ll be right back,” Splinter says, tossing the phone on the counter and getting into a ready stance, beckoning her forward. 

She dashes right past him and smashes the lightbulb in the closet, casting the room into pitch darkness. 

Splinter pricks up his ears. Little does she know that his amazing hearing—

A wing hits him in the side, hard enough to send him tumbling—ok, maybe it’s not that great. 

The kids think it’s all great fun, giggling as they bounce around. 

Splinter dashes to the corner of the room. He tries to land a hit while the bat is stuck, but he barely grazes her. The fabric draped around her huge hat rustles like scratchy curtains as she struggles to free herself.

“Upholstery…” Splinter whispers. He slams the door to the hallway shut and slips off the backpack. “Okay, kids, Papa needs you to do what you did to the seats of the truck, okay?” 

She’s free of the wall, and he can hear her approaching. 

Splinter opens the backpack.

Four dark blurs burst out, exuberant cries filling the room as they bounce around like pinballs. Everything falls into utter chaos. 

She screams in the dark. “ _ Augh, _ get off!”

Splinter stumbles along the wall, desperately feeling for the light switch above his head. He hears fabric tearing, a loud thud, and crying. His stomach seizes in fear as he flips the switch. 

Light floods the room. The now-hatless bat, covered in three laughing little turtles climbing her like a jungle gym, screams in agony and falls to the floor, her hands clamped over her eyes. 

Splinter dashes, heart racing, to the fourth turtle, the one with markings like sword slashes, lying still against the wall. He scoops the child up, looking for injuries. “Are you alright, little one?”

He really needs to figure out names. And genders. But in his defense, he’s had a lot going on.

The little creature laughs and nuzzles him. Splinter sighs, cradling the kid close to his chest, and stands. “Good job! Time for snacks!”

The word ‘snacks’ gets their attention as Splinter rips open a packet of trail mix from his pocket and dumps it on the floor. Without hesitation, the kids eat their fill, the turtle in Splinter’s arms scrambling down to join the frenzy. 

“That’s what you get for breaking into my house!” Splinter takes the bat yokai out of the room and tosses her over the banister to the first floor. She lands with a crash. “You’ll be fine.”

There’s a groan from below. Splinter winces.

“Probably.” 

Splinter returns to the phone. “Hello?”

“Are you alright?” Marcus says in a rush. “Remember, always go for the aliens’ eyes!”

“Yep, that’s what we did,” Splinter says slowly. “Are  _ you _ alright?”

“Oh, as alright as a space captain can be, what with these studio producers trying to mandate my magnificent misadventures. You’re such an inspiration, you know, fighting  _ real _ evil instead of the fake—”

“Oh, yeah! Thank you!” Splinter hops up on the desk. The pile of trail mix is already mostly gone, and the kids are starting to look around for a new project. He lets them. “The trick is to start your own studio. Then  _ you’re _ the producer and you can do whatever you want! I’d describe the movie I wanted to make, someone would write a script, and then—” 

“Oh, that’s a great idea, but can I—?”

“I could do whatever dangerous stunts I wanted,” Splinter continues excitedly. The soft-shelled one wanders over, a couple of cashews in hand, and climbs up in Splinter’s lap, looking up and listening to him ramble. “I could make four movies a year and—”

“—Uh, can I ask a question?”

“Ah, yes,” Splinter says, rubbing the top of his kid’s head. “Sorry, I’m just not used to talking and having someone… talk back.”

“A hero’s life is lonely,” Marcus says sympathetically.

“No, I’m not a hero,” Splinter says, grunting when the spiky one climbs into his lap as well. He sees slash-markings and orange-spots disappear into the closet, but he doesn’t have the energy to chase them right now. “I recently adopted. And my kids have some… special needs. I talk as much as I can, I remember hearing that you should do that for kids, but I’m not sure if they’re ever going to be able to respond.”

“I see,” Marcus says, awkward. “Well, I’d like to dedicate my next movie to you, if that’s alright. What if Jupiter Jim found an entire planet of Lou Jitsus? A full crossover movie! You could be in it, now that you’re back!”

Splinter laughs. “That’s—”

The orange-spotted one stumbles out of the closet, the ancient family scroll in his hands. 

“No, bad, stop—” Splinter drops the phone and sprints over, snatching the scroll away. 

The mystic scroll uncoils just enough, and he can read only the first line, burned into his memory from countless lectures. 

_ Become one with the shadows. Disappear. Such is the way of the ninja, and the sacred duty of all descendants of the Hamato Clan. _

Splinter shuts it firmly. He’s never read past the first line of this thing, and he plans to keep it that way.

He scoops up his kids, all upset either from getting scolded or from getting knocked to the floor. “I’m sorry, kids. It’s alright. Let’s sit still for a minute, alright?” Thankfully, they settle into his arms without a fuss.

Splinter hops back onto the desk and picks up the phone yet again. “Sorry about that. Had to stop them from desecrating an ancient family heirloom.”

“Okay,” Marcus says slowly. “Anyway, what’s the best way I could pay tribute to you in my next movie, then?”

Splinter swallows. “I started making movies because I wanted everyone to  _ see _ me. I wanted to see  _ myself _ on the screen. But now…” He looks down at his kids, all curled up in his lap, snuffling in their sleep. He sighs, stroking their heads. “I think the best possible tribute you could give me is… if your next movie was about turtles. Warriors of great renown.”

“Turtles? Uh…I can do that,” Marcus says, and thankfully doesn’t pry. “Thank you so much for calling, I—oh wait, what was the favor you called about?”

“Right!” Splinter says, sitting up straight. “I need you to take care of my house for me. I called the police, but they asked for my name and no one knows… Oh, uh, you can’t tell anyone about this phone call by the way.”

“I won’t tell, but—if you called 911, the police are already on the way.”

“What!”

“Yeah. You probably have only a few minutes at this point. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure your secret never gets out. Fires are untraceable—” 

“Okay thanks, bye!” Splinter slams the phone onto the receiver, scoops up his kids, and shoves them into the backpack, ignoring their startled cries. “Break time is over!”

It only takes a couple of minutes to move Yoshi’s old things into the truck. And because he’s a sap, he throws in as much of his favorite Lou Jitsu stuff as he can fit, too. Splinter’s trying to reach a high-up poster when he hears the googlyschmootz from down the hall. “I’m gonna get you, mysterious rat man!” 

“Big Mama hired some real clowns,” Splinter says, and then trips over his own feet. “Okay, time to go.” 

He looks around his home, overwhelmed with memory, longing, and heartache. He leans against a wall, presses his forehead into it, hoping that he’s mishearing distant police sirens. “I’ll be alright. We’ll be alright.” 

He can hear gentle snoring from his babies. He takes a deep breath, and the pain in his chest recedes a little. “Okay. Okay—”

“Freeze!” the yokai cries, bursting in. “Please! Do you have any idea what Big Mama’s like when she’s angry?!”

Splinter stands to his full height, though it may not be much, smiling. “Yep! Good luck!” He kicks a Lou Jitsu soccer ball right at the yokai’s face before crashing through the window, whooping. 

By the time the cops show up, Splinter is safely in his truck with his kids and treasures from his two past lives, driving into the yawning night. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> as of posting, the mad dogz zine is about to start accepting contributors for its second volume, and you can follow that [here](https://twitter.com/maddogzzine)
> 
> anyway yeah i think a lot about how there are there very distinct phases of splinter's life and how it must feel to be so disconnected from these past versions of himself, and also how he would have had no real reason to think that the turtles would be able to talk, at first, and how scary and lonely that period must have been 
> 
> also he's stinky and i love him


End file.
